My morning routine in Detroit is always pretty much the same:
7:15am: Alarm goes off. I’ll check a few message and scroll my Instagram feed to avoid getting out of bed for a few more minutes
7:30am: Head downstairs and jog to the Wayne State gym. Ashka and I taught ourselves how to use the rowing machine in the first week or so here, so I’ll try that and probably give up after 10 minutes. Back to the treadmill with strange variations of sprints and hills to keep me entertained. Depending on how ambitious I am, I’ll get back sometime between 8:20 and 8:40.
8:55am: After showering, I make the exact same breakfast every day-- oatmeal, chia seeds, peanut butter, cinnamon, and frozen bananas + strawberries. (Proud to have passed the recipe on to Caroline and Katherine). I’ll make myself a lunch too if I haven’t already the night before.
9:35am: Meet Ben in the lobby and bike to work at Build Institute, 3 miles away in Mexicantown. We’ve gotten slightly less terrified of the bumpy Detroit terrain over the last few weeks, and even venture away from the sidewalk to the actual road for the first part of the trip.
10am: After changing out of our biking clothes, we set up in the little yellow room adjacent to the space Build shares with Repair the World. On many days, we’re the first ones there. We give ourselves a few minutes to scroll through the news/social media before actually getting started around 10:15.
10:15-12:30pm: No two days are the same, but we’ll usually start the day by doing research on entrepreneurship and small business history in Detroit. For a week or two, we’d spend the morning looking up Build graduates to find if they had created a business and if it still was active. Other mornings, we’d analyze survey data to find a job multiplier that could accurately reflect alumni businesses.
11:45am: Since I’ve learned to use the French press, I’ll make coffee for myself, Wayne, and sometimes Madalyn. (Wayne prefers when Madalyn makes it because my coffee is way too strong)
12:30pm: At 12:30 on the dot, Ben and I are too hungry to be productive anymore so we’ll head over the the grocery store, Honey Bee’s, where he challenges himself to find lunch for under $3-4. Then I’ll grab my lunch from the Build fridge and we’ll take a quick break to eat.
1pm-5pm: We always have a few projects going on, and will usually try to do something different in the afternoon from what we did in the morning. Recently, our afternoons have been filled with formatting our final deliverable. This includes collecting our data/research and organizing it into tables and charts to best present our findings to Build.
5:15pm: The office starts to slow down by now, so we pack up our things, change back into biking clothes, and head back to University Towers. The ride back is always a little more hectic than the mornings, but it’s still nice to exercise a bit after sitting all day.
5:45pm: There were a couple busy weeks where we had something planned almost every night after work, like group dinner, self defense class, or a Build event. If the evening is free, I’ll make dinner when I get back. Then there’s free time to read, watch Netflix, or call friends/family.
If it’s a free night, Henry, Joe, and I will play Settlers of Catan. They’re both infinitely better than I am, so 95% chance I lose. Midway through the game Joe will casually mention how much he despises us each time we play.
I’m exhausted by the end of Catan, so I’ll usually spend a few minutes making lunch for the next day, watch an episode of West Wing, and try to get to sleep by 11:30. I love that every day here is always different. Sometimes Ben and I will have a meeting or an interview during the day that switches up our schedule and allows us to explore new coffee shops (Avalon is our favorite by far). Every Tuesday is a group dinner at a new restaurant in a different part of the city. Sometimes the girls try one of the exercise classes together (Shout out to Caroline for waking up at 5:30am to go to a spinning class with me). The weekends leave plenty of time to explore Eastern Market, Belle Isle, the riverfront, and downtown/midtown restaurants.
7:15am: Alarm goes off. I’ll check a few message and scroll my Instagram feed to avoid getting out of bed for a few more minutes
7:30am: Head downstairs and jog to the Wayne State gym. Ashka and I taught ourselves how to use the rowing machine in the first week or so here, so I’ll try that and probably give up after 10 minutes. Back to the treadmill with strange variations of sprints and hills to keep me entertained. Depending on how ambitious I am, I’ll get back sometime between 8:20 and 8:40.
8:55am: After showering, I make the exact same breakfast every day-- oatmeal, chia seeds, peanut butter, cinnamon, and frozen bananas + strawberries. (Proud to have passed the recipe on to Caroline and Katherine). I’ll make myself a lunch too if I haven’t already the night before.
9:35am: Meet Ben in the lobby and bike to work at Build Institute, 3 miles away in Mexicantown. We’ve gotten slightly less terrified of the bumpy Detroit terrain over the last few weeks, and even venture away from the sidewalk to the actual road for the first part of the trip.
10am: After changing out of our biking clothes, we set up in the little yellow room adjacent to the space Build shares with Repair the World. On many days, we’re the first ones there. We give ourselves a few minutes to scroll through the news/social media before actually getting started around 10:15.
10:15-12:30pm: No two days are the same, but we’ll usually start the day by doing research on entrepreneurship and small business history in Detroit. For a week or two, we’d spend the morning looking up Build graduates to find if they had created a business and if it still was active. Other mornings, we’d analyze survey data to find a job multiplier that could accurately reflect alumni businesses.
11:45am: Since I’ve learned to use the French press, I’ll make coffee for myself, Wayne, and sometimes Madalyn. (Wayne prefers when Madalyn makes it because my coffee is way too strong)
12:30pm: At 12:30 on the dot, Ben and I are too hungry to be productive anymore so we’ll head over the the grocery store, Honey Bee’s, where he challenges himself to find lunch for under $3-4. Then I’ll grab my lunch from the Build fridge and we’ll take a quick break to eat.
1pm-5pm: We always have a few projects going on, and will usually try to do something different in the afternoon from what we did in the morning. Recently, our afternoons have been filled with formatting our final deliverable. This includes collecting our data/research and organizing it into tables and charts to best present our findings to Build.
5:15pm: The office starts to slow down by now, so we pack up our things, change back into biking clothes, and head back to University Towers. The ride back is always a little more hectic than the mornings, but it’s still nice to exercise a bit after sitting all day.
5:45pm: There were a couple busy weeks where we had something planned almost every night after work, like group dinner, self defense class, or a Build event. If the evening is free, I’ll make dinner when I get back. Then there’s free time to read, watch Netflix, or call friends/family.
If it’s a free night, Henry, Joe, and I will play Settlers of Catan. They’re both infinitely better than I am, so 95% chance I lose. Midway through the game Joe will casually mention how much he despises us each time we play.
I’m exhausted by the end of Catan, so I’ll usually spend a few minutes making lunch for the next day, watch an episode of West Wing, and try to get to sleep by 11:30. I love that every day here is always different. Sometimes Ben and I will have a meeting or an interview during the day that switches up our schedule and allows us to explore new coffee shops (Avalon is our favorite by far). Every Tuesday is a group dinner at a new restaurant in a different part of the city. Sometimes the girls try one of the exercise classes together (Shout out to Caroline for waking up at 5:30am to go to a spinning class with me). The weekends leave plenty of time to explore Eastern Market, Belle Isle, the riverfront, and downtown/midtown restaurants.
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